The present disclosure relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit including an external terminal capable of receiving an external voltage higher than the circuit's own power supply voltage.
To build a semiconductor system using metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors, external terminals of two semiconductor integrated circuits operating at different power supply voltages may be connected directly to each other. In this case, one of the semiconductor integrated circuits receives, at its external terminal, a voltage higher than the own power supply voltage. Even in this case, known art feeds the external voltage received at the external terminal back to the control system for the following purposes. The known art aims to address the problem of breakdown of P-channel MOS (PMOS) transistors constituting an output circuit and to reduce leakage currents from the external terminal to the power supply terminal (see, e.g., WO2004/107578).